


The Weight of the World

by MyOwnNarrative (orphan_account)



Category: BioShock
Genre: (there are probably gonna be tags added along the way bc i'm a mess), Atlas is Fontaine, Don't you worry, F/F, I'm so sorry, Jack is for real tho, Like she's a real girl, also it's about to be real painful but we'll have fun, and she grew up with good ol' dad Andrew, idk - Freeform, mentions and allusions to burial at sea, mentions of abuse, so atlas/fontaine and jack are both women??, um, very much plot driven, we're playing this a whole lot by ear y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:38:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7363429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MyOwnNarrative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacqueline Ryan isn't her father's daughter, she varies from him in every conceivable way. And, in the Ryan house, this is an unforgivable offense. As turmoil begins to build in Rapture, falling outs between the two become even more commonplace, and Jack's world quickly changes to nearly unrecognizable. Through arguments to revolution, Jack's already miserable life always seems to find a way to go downhill until, perhaps, all that changes when she meets Atlas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Francine Fontaine

Andrew Ryan looked down his nose at his daughter, with what she could only assume was his primary, inborn expression, one of condescending disappointment, and thinly veiled disgust. “You smell like one of those repulsive parasite havens.” That was the expression she saw most often, anyway. She opened her mouth to argue but her father held up a hand. The simple gesture was enough to quiet her. “This has happened enough times. I have made my stance on the matter perfectly clear.” And so had she; she now knew better than to try to speak her mind. Andrew Ryan betrayed his humanity with a long, weary sigh. “However, Cohen is holding an event this evening.”

“You want me to go?” Jacqueline Ryan let her tone convey exactly how excited she was to attend. But, she wouldn't argue. She wasn't ignorant of how much trouble her appearance at this event could get her out of, if even just in this moment. 

“No,” At his words her head snapped up, so that she was actually making eye contact with her father. “We're going together.” It wasn't often that he insisted on the both of them attending an event. 

“Why?” All trace of whining gone from her voice, the question was asked purely out of curiosity. 

“I don't know that I trust Cohen alone with you.” Ryan admitted. His distrust didn't stem from Cohen being a sleaze ball, as most entrepreneurs of Rapture were, but from the fact that he was a maniac. Willing to go to any length for his art, if he decided that his ‘muse’ required Jacqueline Ryan to be tortured or killed, he wouldn't be liable to take into account that she was the heiress to Ryan Industries, the single most powerful company in Rapture. At least, that was the rationale that Jacqueline suspected. “But,” her father gave her a stern look. “For sanity’s sake, take a shower.”

Jacqueline turned on her heel, she knew when her father had nothing important left to say. She knew how to be efficient. These were things that Andrew Ryan had ingrained in her from her early childhood. 

“Oh,” he added as an afterthought while she was already halfway out of his door. “And wear something nice, would you?”

Jacqueline left her father's office at as quick a pace as she thought she could get away with. It was a fairly plain office, for someone who had built an entire city underwater and practically ruled over it through industry alone. She knew her father preferred to show his importance through power plays, not ornamental or excessive possessions. Walking past the towering bookcases, she considered taking the long way home, through the city, but decided better of it. Her father had built a private street that connected his office in Hephaestus directly to their home and, as he had not specified a time for this evening's happenings, she decided being punctual mattered more than being avoidant. 

Despite that decision, she found herself spending an immoderate amount of time in the shower. The warm water seemed to be the most calming thing she could find. Ever since her eleventh birthday, for which her gift had been moving to her father’s brainchild of a city, she had never quite felt like she could get far enough away from any of her problems. Especially her father. Andrew Ryan was nearly omnipresent in Rapture, often only in the rampant broadcasts and propaganda that dominated the city streets. The shower and her bedroom had easily become her favorite places. That was, until the establishment of Fontaine's Home For the Poor and the Little Sister Orphanage, the two catalysts in her and her father's ever growing split in political policies. She had begun not only volunteering at what her father had deemed “parasite factories,” among other unpleasant names, she had started spending increasing, almost worrying, increments of time there. Jacqueline had been raised to believe ideals were just as central, if not more, to any man as his personality or any other trait. Drifting from her father’s ideology was not to be tolerated. 

Her father was waiting, impatient as ever, when she was finally ready. 

“Another minute and we would be late.” He admonished, standing to leave as soon as she entered the room. “Otherwise I would have you change. You know how I hate that dress.”

Behind his back, Jacqueline allowed herself a self-satisfied look of victory. Aloud she only said, “Of course, father.” She was fully aware of his loathing for her favorite dress, but he seemed to possess an acute distaste for most things she was fond of; she had long since stopped paying his opinion any mind. 

Without another word, she followed her father from their house, which, although abnormally large for Rapture, was built much more like an apartment or row house. There was no yard, and the house next door was practically inseparable from the Ryan Estate. Even Andrew Ryan paid for the extreme space constraints that came with an underwater city, but the consequences he suffered were hardly of note. 

“Ah, Mr. Ryan!” The greeter that stood in Cohen’s entry room wore a rabbit mask and paid Jacqueline little mind, both recurring themes at Cohen’s functions. The latter was a normality for more than a few of her father’s friends and their followers. She wasn't respected as a public figure quite like Andrew Ryan. She was aware that his leviathan of a legacy may never allow her to be. “I'll take your coat sir, and please, through here. Mr. Cohen is waiting.”

Ryan handed over his coat and began down the long, blazingly white reception hall, all without granting the greeter eye contact, or any other respectful gesture. Jacqueline, despite not having a coat of her own, nodded gratefully to the greeter on her father's behalf. He turned on his heel and attended to his business, and Jacqueline hurried after her father. 

Her father had no more wisdom to impart on her, she knew precisely how she was to conduct herself at such a function. She followed him through the flashing lights of the hallway that led to the room they were meant to go to. Curtains acted as a door, to match Cohen’s theatrics, as they parted a pleasant melody and the buzz of polite conversation were both suddenly present. The balcony beyond the curtain was comfortably crowded, but down a spiraling staircase was a larger floor for mingling that, from the looks of it, was teeming with too many guests to possibly be practical. Jacqueline hung back on the balcony, her father descending the stairs to socialize with the rich and powerful who swayed carelessly to the music below. 

“Ms. Jacqueline Ryan.” A cool, heavily accented voice said in disbelief from somewhere behind Jacqueline. “I've never been subject to such an honor.” She was surprised to find no trace of sarcasm as she turned and saw whom, exactly, the voice belonged to. 

“Francine Fontaine?” She stuttered, feeling heat rushing to her cheeks. “No, the honor’s all mine.” Jacqueline found herself tripping over her words, unsure of what to say first or next. “I love what you're doing in the slums. And, please, just call me Jack.”

Francine let out a light, playful laugh, obviously amused that she had Jacqueline Ryan so starstruck. “It's good to hear someone loves it.” Fontaine smiled, she was very beautiful, Jack noticed. “And, while we're giving each other pet names, you can call me Frankie.”

“Oh,” Jack wasn't accustomed to her father's acquaintance giving her consideration at all, this exchange was completely uncharted territory. And now she was not only in first name, but pet name basis with Francine, or rather Frankie, Fontaine. “Of course.”

“I had heard you'd started working in the home for the poor and you have no idea how relieved I was.” Fontaine commented. “Rapture will need a leader who's concerned for her people by the time you're in charge.”

“Rapture’s not a monarchy.” The words had left Jack's mouth before she fully processed that she was saying them. She had no need to think them up, they existed as a constant, acting as a sort of underlying motivator for everything she did. However, she had not intended to say them out loud. “If everyone's lucky, I won't end up in charge at all.” She tried, desperately to make it all sound as if she were joking. Why was she spilling her deepest fears to a stranger she barely knew through the occasional advertisement? “Maybe you'll end up in charge.” She added with a laugh that she could only hope didn't sound nervous. 

Fontaine’s smile was almost sheepish. “Yeah right, a socialist running Rapture? When pigs fly.” Fontaine’s joking demeanor and laughter were dangerously contagious. Before long, not only had Jack forgotten the recent awkward moment between the two of them, she almost forgot that the situation had a very real political context. And that her father would not overlook that. 

“Peach is a model worker, don't get me wrong,” Fontaine had been explaining. She had been telling funny anecdotes, mostly from Fontaine Fisheries (the more interesting of her two business ventures, she had assured Jack). “But the mook’s a damn nut case.” It was striking how, even at a fairly formal event such as one of Cohen's parties, Fontaine seemed incredibly laid back. She still swore shamelessly, almost as if there were no difference between her everyday vocabulary and obscenities. Her rough Brooklyn accent only served to worsen any attempt at etiquette she put forth, which were few and far between. She was enchantingly authentic. “Just last week, the guy comes running up to me yelling about some ghosts he's been seeing after splicing. ‘Course, I just told him to lay off it, but-”

“Jacqueline Ryan.” There it was again, her father’s ever present disdainful tone. Jack didn't turn, she had seen the expression she knew was on his face enough. 

Fontaine cocked an eyebrow as if to ask if she was planning on simply ignoring her father. She was. 

“You don't think he actually saw any ghosts?” Jack asked Fontaine, who now had a stubbornly amused smirk planted in her lips. 

“Oh, I don't know,” Fontaine admitted flippantly, eyeing something over Jack's shoulder, which she could only assume was her fuming father. “Fontaine Futuristics hasn't spent a damn penny on testing for-”

“Jacqueline.” This time Andrew Ryan's hand planted itself firmly on Jack's shoulder. 

“Oh, hi there, Mr. Ryan.” Fontaine met her competitor with a sizeable, insincere smile. “You enjoying yourself?”

“Fontaine. I don't have time for your-” Ryan seethed, Jack didn't dare turn around to face her father. 

“I hear Cohen’s been taking auditions downstairs. They say he finds a new way to dispose of each disappointment.” Fontaine commented lightly, Jack wasn't sure why. She hadn't bothered to go down to catch a glimpse of the ‘festivities’ but she had heard of them. “Personally, I think the night’d be a waste if we didn't see you give it the ol’ college try.”

Jack failed to hold in a giggle and felt her father's grip on her shoulder tighten painfully. 

“Well, I am terribly sorry to disappoint, ” Jack finally turned, just enough to catch a glimpse of her father talking through the teeth of his strained smile. “But I'm afraid I was already on my way out. I had just come over to retrieve my daughter.”

“Oh well,” Fontaine winked at Jack, “damn shame. But, it was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ryan. And,” She paused, as if to emphasize her next words. “It's a relief to know being a prick isn't hereditary.”

“Don't,” Andrew Ryan hissed in Jack’s ear as her forcibly turned her towards the exit, “dignify that with an answer.”

Silence pounded in Jack's ears as her father steered her past the curtain and, eventually, out of Cohen's altogether. She considered telling him that he had forgotten his coat, but decided it would be best to stay quiet. She felt foolish, being led out of a function like a child when, in reality, she was twenty-three and fully capable of finding her own way out. She also felt foolish still fearing her father, but she was fairly certain that was warranted. 

It would be another month before she was let out of the house.


	2. The Long Con

At seventeen, she had been a prodigy of industry. With a fishing business in the works, and her sales of plasmids immediately taking off, there were whispers about her surpassing Andrew Ryan from the day she set foot in Rapture. By twenty-three she was praised as the virtuoso of genetics and marketing, both nothing less than essential to Rapture. Of course, she had done little work herself with the actual science of the whole ordeal, but people often saw Tenenbaum and Suchong as her followers, not vice-versa. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, she was well established as a hero to the common man, and a nuisance to the wealthy,specifically Andrew Ryan. The same man who had, less than a decade ago, exalted her as the quintessential example of Rapture's purpose, a story book ready tale that chronicled the rise from street urchin to a captain of industry, now condemned her as a hoodlum and a rabble-rouser. Francine Fontaine had found that these were three phases were the most convenient way of compartmentalizing her life. There had been seventeen years before Rapture, but they hardly seemed relevant anymore. 

Ten years ago, after sending a personal note to Andrew Ryan himself requesting entrance to his fabled city, her first glimpse of the city had been breathtaking, and well worth the effort. In 1947, a year prior to her acceptance into the city, she had assumed the identity of a fisher woman and smuggler who had been supplying a considerable amount of Rapture's resources. It had been thanks to that, at the time only year long, con that she had made it into Rapture at all. Now, she had been Francine Fontaine for eleven years, and hardly minded. Unlike Andrew Ryan, it was not her money that made her dangerous, it was her cunning, ruthlessness, and mastery of manipulation. 

Andrew Ryan was not an idiot, Francine had to grant him that. He knew better than to trust Fontaine or, at least, he figured it out eventually. The moment Francine was sure she had lost Ryan was when she took the charity angle. But, who needed one man when they could have an entire army of the poor? 

“You're a socialist now?” Francine had been twenty-four when she had opened Fontaine’s Home for the Poor.

“Oh, Ryan. Come on in why don't you?” Andrew Ryan had taken it upon himself to storm down to her office unannounced the very next day. Her welcome had been facetious, he had let himself in without as much as a nod to her secretary. 

“What do you get out of it?” Ryan had demanded, red in the face, spit flying from his lips. She had made a fool of him. “You want to undermine my authority with this charity bullshit, that's it, isn't it?”

_I get an army of men and women, bound to me by their dependency on plasmids, all disenchanted with your illegitimate and ineffective governing, if you can call it that._ Fontaine had to admit that didn't seem like the most diplomatic approach. 

“I'm sorry?” She acted appalled, but she had honestly expected nothing less. In fact, half of the joy of opening the home had been knowing just how much it would grind Ryan's gears. “Just because you don't have a generous bone in your body-”

“Me?” Ryan’s voice had risen steadily since he'd entered the office, and now Francine was fairly certain he couldn't get much louder. “I built an entire city and opened it for people's free use!”

“And then you left them to rot!” Now Fontaine was yelling. “Or create affronts to nature and take advantage of those who are starving on their front porch!”

“You're a damn hypocrite, Fontaine, if you haven't-”

“It ever occur to you I want to help these people because I grew up on the streets?” Francine was standing now, too. Their argument had become nothing more than a jumble of angry words tripping over each other to be heard. “Even the streets of New York are nothing compared to this shit hole you’ve dreamt up, you-”

“Enough!” Fontaine had been wrong in her earlier assumption that Ryan could not get louder. She started and fell into shocked silence as her competitor slammed his fists down on her desk. “I'm going to find out what you're up to, and when I do, I'll leave you to the big daddies.”

Fontaine matched his venomous stare with ease. “As usual, Mr. Ryan,” She spat into her hand before holding it out for a handshake. “I wish you the best of luck.”

She had, at that juncture, lived in Rapture for seven years and, even including the three years to follow, she never saw Andrew Ryan lose compose quite like he did that day. She was sure she could have played the role of sympathetic, street orphan and convinced anyone else of her genuineness. If it weren't for the fact that Ryan was so goddamned paranoid, she might have tried harder. But she knew better then, and she still knew better now. 

She was twenty-seven, and she was backed into a corner. Andrew Ryan was bearing down on his search for anything, but more specifically a smuggling ring, that could justify his getting rid of her. The fact that murder was not illegal in Rapture was becoming more and more prevalent in Fontaine’s everyday thoughts. It was distressingly clear, at least to her, that if it weren't for the politics of the situation, she would likely already have been dead. And, to make matters worse, Ryan wasn't wrong about the smuggling ring. It was becoming increasingly obvious that simply sitting around wouldn't do for much longer if Fontaine wanted to make it out with her life, not to mention a profit. She needed a plan. 

“Ryan wants Fontaine dead.” Francine explained plainly to Reggie, her right hand girl. Reggie who would, at most, admit to her full first name being Regina, had known Francine through several cons and countless assumed identities. 

“So?” Reggie was casually leant back in a chair in Fontaine’s smuggling den, peeling a mango offhandedly with a shiv of sorts. “Cons end, you've made a nice buck. Rapture’s dry.”

“That's our contraband.” Francine pointed out, her voice lazily accusatory. “And I'm not done with Rapture.” This was said with more conviction. “I'm just gettin’ started.”

“Mmkay,” Reggie responded through a mouthful of mango. There was a long pause where neither woman felt a need to talk. Francine was pacing, and Reggie knew her well enough to know that pacing meant a plan was in the works. “So, we stick it to Ryan?”

“No,” Francine had barely heard Reggie over her own thoughts. “He won't stop till I'm dead. S’that simple.” 

“Well? You said you're just getting started, you can't die and just be getting started.” Reggie observed in her usual, dull manner. Francine had always been the brain, and Reggie the brawn. 

“ _I_ can't die, Francine Fontaine can.” Reggie rose an eyebrow, but she had no intention of talking around her mango again. “Where you were wrong, Reggie, is that Rapture’s not dry, the Fontaine con is. So, we start over.”

“You fake your death, assume a new identity,” Reggie paused in her eating, her knife, with a piece of mango skewered on it, suspended only inches away from her mouth, to make her next point. “All that's great, Frankie. But, Ryan ain't gonna just declare you dead without a body.” 

“I know,” Francine admitted, reaching into a holster that never left her side. It held a tommy gun, the same make and model used by Ryan Security. Reggie had not reached this conclusion before Francine, she never did manage to out think her old friend. 

“Frankie, what the hell are you-” 

Francine Fontaine didn't flinch as she pulled the trigger. The rattling shots of the tommy gun reverberated on the stony walls of Fontaine’s smuggling den. She had thought ahead, she always did, and her men had been sent home early that day. There was no sense in letting people see more than they had to. 

“Ugh,” she scrunched her nose in distaste at the blood that was pouring from Reggie's body. “I'm sorry, I'm going to have to just do up the disguise around all that mess.” She frowned, and then turned to make some important calls. 

First, she called Peach Wilkins. The man had had treason on his mind for months, and all she had to do was convince him it was a plausible idea. Peach kept a service radio on him at all times, something Fontaine had required of him from day one, and was finally of use. She grabbed a nearby radio from the wall and turned it on. 

“Peach,” Francine disguised her voice without effort, she was a born conman. A desperate tone was easy enough for her to convey, as she was breathless from dragging her oldest friend’s body across the floor. “I know a way you can get Fontaine.”

“Who is this?” Peach’s voice held its usual note of fear and aggressive distrust. “What do you mean? I ain't never conspired against the boss and day in my life!”

Fontaine, despite the exhaustion that was slowly breaking down her composure, found enough energy to roll her eyes. “The name's Atlas, and you can trust me. All I'm asking is that you slip up, nothing big, it won't take that much to tip off Ryan, and I'll cover you from there.” Francine took a deep breath, her Irish accent was less rusty than she had expected. 

“And what do you get out of it?” Peach sounded hesitant now, but only that. This would be an offer he couldn't refuse. All of Fontaine’s men wanted out of her operation, but none more fiercely or for as long as than Peach Wilkins. 

“I get an opening, and another tyrant out of the way. I'm in this for the people, Peach, and we all need Fontaine gone.” She took a moment’s pause, mostly for the sake of drama. “For starters, anyway.”

There was a long silence over the radio, and Fontaine let it sit on the floor as she dragged Reggie's body further. She let out an exhausted sigh as she realized she would also need to clean up the blood. 

“And then what?” Peach’s question was so sudden Fontaine nearly jumped out of her skin. Her employee’s voice was doubtful but, more than that, it was also curious. Maybe even hopeful. “You think you're gonna kill Ryan?”

“You're really more afraid of Ryan than Fontaine?” Francis knew what Peach’s answer would be, whether it was logical or not. 

Peach must have had an idea of how obvious his answer would sound. Because he said nothing more, and he didn't have to. Fontaine already knew she had him. Francine Fontaine would be dead by the same time the next day.


	3. End of an Era

News and politics were both constants at the Ryan house. And this allowed Jack, even while on house arrest, to stay up-to-date with the latest comings and goings of Rapture almost effortlessly. In fact, it was not hard for her to over hear news she found herself sure she could have lived without knowing. Joseph Steinman, Rapture’s legendary cosmetic surgeon, was failing to heat his pipes again, for instance, and Bill McDonagh was concerned about leakage. This was worrisome for more reasons that Jack could count, especially as McDonagh, she would think, should know exactly what to be concerned about as he had practically built the city himself, and she found herself wishing she could have still lived ignorant of that bit of news. Regardless, men and women from police officers to city botanists were always leaving or coming in from appointments with Andrew Ryan, and were usually mumbling about their problems or how little their leader was doing to solve them. Jack found that it was so often and detailed that she rarely needed to pick up a newspaper. Most frequent of these visits were by the city council, which was almost always held in the Ryan residence, as opposed to being held in Hephaestus. 

These were the many reasons that, on the fourth of October, when Jack Ryan was released to the public, she immediately knew her father had crossed a line. When Jack was finally let out of her home, nearly a month after her horrific offense of holding a conversation with someone whom her father didn't much care for, she found that something was very wrong. Every single conversation, no matter the participants, seemed to converge on a single date. A single event. It hardly mattered if Jack was actually involved in the conversation or not, she heard the hushed discussions before even reaching the first street corner. September 12th, 1958 was, quite apparently, the exact day that everything in Rapture began to turn for the worse; admittedly, Jack had not accounted for worsening conditions in the already dystopian city. 

Jack was standing, more so in shock than anything else, at the southern end of Hestia Chambers before she knew what she was going to do next. The building that, just over a month ago, Jack had spent practically all her waking hours in, was now barred off to the public and already falling into disrepair. A few huddled figures still sat near the building, begging passersby for spare change or a place to stay. 

“Ms. Ryan!” One called out after recognizing the mortified girl who stood staring at the abandoned charity house. She recognized him as well, although not by name, she had seen him plenty when she had volunteered at the home. 

“He killed Fontaine,” Jack whispered, still not entirely able to process the fact as real. How could her father do that? And then, so purposefully keep it from her? She felt sick. 

“I'm sorry, miss?” The damp street dweller asked. Whether he had failed to hear her or was simply at a loss for what she could mean, Jack didn't know. Regardless, she had been talking to herself more than to him. 

“Andrew Ryan killed Fontaine,” She clarified, “and now it's all anyone is talking about. And this is--” She gasped, “What happened to the orphanage?” She suddenly felt incredibly out of place, demanding updates on current events from a homeless man in Hestia Chamber. She was frantic enough that this seemed of little consequence. 

“Oh.” The man frowned deeply, the soot that covered his face gave his features a much more ominous look. “Ma'am, the young girls are being used to,” he paused uncomfortably before plugging ahead, “produce Adam.”

Jack opened her mouth, but in a mix of anger and confusion, found herself at a loss for words. She had no idea what her new informant meant by that, and she was now resolved to get some answers from her father immediately. Before she left, she emptied her pockets, and gave all the contents, amounting to somewhere near a hundred or so dollars, to the man on the street. 

“Francine Fontaine is dead?” Now she demanded answers from her father, who sat engrossed in a report of some sort at his desk in Hephaestus. Her voice already raised, Jack made no attempt to hide her rage. 

“Yes, she has been that way.” Andrew Ryan didn't bother to look up from his report, even despite his daughter’s obvious distress. 

“And you never told me?” Jack now slammed her hands on her father’s desk, finally gaining his attention. He made eye contact, his eyebrows raised in either surprise or annoyance. Jack couldn't tell. 

“It was hardly relevant to you.” He was still well held together, barely batting an eye at Jack’s face which was now frozen in rage. She found herself seeing red. She couldn't quite think of what to say without her next sentence being an impressive string of expletives. “You’d talked to her once. I couldn't imagine you'd care.”

“ _I wouldn’t care? ___Don't you dare project your sociopathic tendencies onto me! And I assume you also thought that I wouldn't care that you've shut down the home for the poor? That you've turned baby girls into Adam factories?” She yelled, tears rolling down her cheeks in her frustration. “I’m not even entirely sure what that means, because I've been cooped up here and kept in the dark.”

“I've never striven to keep you informed, you know I believe you should take-” 

“But I hear things anyway! I know how many trees have died in Arcadia in the past month down to the exact number. I know how frustrating Suchong finds all his assigned experiments, and there at least three I'm positive I shouldn't know about at all!” Jack took a deep breath, but began to rant again before her father could fit in another word. She didn't want to hear his voice ever again. “The City Council meets here monthly! But they didn't, not this month! You were keeping this from me!” 

Jack was quite sure that the look on her father's face had been annoyance. She was intimately familiar with how the expression melted into anger. “Jacqueline Ryan, I will not have you slander me in my own office! I am your father and I-” 

“Oh, is that what you're calling yourself now?” She began to desperately to wipe at her fast falling tears to no effect. “You've never been before! You've always been a proud businessman! Or immigrant! Or leader of Rapture! And now do you know what you are? A tyrant.” she accused, prompting her father to stand from behind his desk. “A tyrant and murderer. That's all. So why don't you kill me, just like you did to Fontaine! I worked at her charity. I believe that people deserve a chance at a comfortable, a liveable, life!” 

“Her smuggling business was a blatant danger to the security of Rapture!” If Francine Fontaine had been around to see it, she might have admitted that Andrew Ryan was angrier than the day she took up charity in that moment. But she wasn't, and the two who were present didn’t think or know to think such a thing. 

“And her charity was, as well, wasn't it! But not to this city, to your authority. You buy some steel, and then you sit around here like you're the goddamn king when you've done shit to get yourself here. Those people work their asses off everyday, and you sit around and play at god. And the only thing that separates you from the people you call parasites is the size of your fucking pocket book!” It was immediately obvious she had crossed a line. 

“Ha,” Andrew Ryan never laughed. Perhaps that’s why it was so disconcerting, even if it was obviously forced. “You sound just like one of them! The only real difference is the way you live. Your money. But you forget, moya doch, it's not yours, it's mine and that small difference can easily be amended.” 

Jack opened her mouth, either in indignation or disbelief she didn't know, and she failed to figure it out fast enough. Her mouth hanging open, she found herself completely unsure of what to say as her father picked up his personal radio. 

“Security? Yes, please escort my daughter to the nearest bathysphere.” A baffled response rattled itself from the radio, Jack’s mind racing faster now. “Yes, you heard me correctly. And please make it clear to her that she is not welcome back.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is gonna be a wild ride, y'all, but hopefully you'll all stick around through it. I'm gonna try to be fairly regular in my updates, but I'm really bad about that, so just be patient with me. Anyways, I'm always up for suggests, or any comments of any kind. Anyways, y'all enjoy this!


End file.
